Repertoire

DON CARLO

Director Günter Krämer (Germany)Laureate of the Golden Cross of the Stage as Best Director 2016Set Designer, Dramaturg Herbert Schäfer (Germany)Laureate of the Golden Cross of the Stage Award as Best Set Designer 2016

In 2016, LNOBT‘s premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera "Don Carlo" immediately turned into one of the most significant theatre productions, and the extremely diverse opinions that it caused only prove the fact that this version of G. Verdi’s masterpiece generates a very strong impact on its viewers. And how could it be any different? After all, "Don Carlo" (which is perceived as a representation of the grand opera genre) is a majestic work of art not only because of its wonderful musical material, but also due to the impressive historical characters and dramatic storyline. The creative team of the current production presented their own version of Don Carlo, refusing all sorts of theatrical illustrations and instead focusing on the revelation of deepest layers of meaning, hidden within music and text. This new production of "Don Carlo" was created by the famous German visionary director Günter Krämer, prominent conductor Pierre Vallet, who is in demand all over the world, and set designer-dramaturg Herbert Schäfer.

G. Verdi’s "Don Carlo" was first unveiled to the audiences in 1867, in Paris. Opera itself was written after Friedrich Schiller’s play. The latter contained everything that G. Verdi was looking for: having left behind superficial dramatic theatricality and librettos filled with romantic passions, he settled upon works that displayed a great deal of concealed tragedy. These works no longer possessed the overactive action on the exterior – instead, they were overflowing with inner turmoil, quests to find the real human values and longing for humanity itself.

As a genius master of the dramaturgy of music, Verdi was very much aware of the fact that a political drama on its own is far less handy when it comes to showing audience's favourite passionate collisions of feelings that are usually present in stories of dramas within families. Thus, in Don Carlo he merged the two spheres together, creating the perfect collision between personal, political and ideological conflicts. Verdi was only 53 when the score for Grand Opera in Paris was completed, however, he spent around 20 years editing, abridging "Don Carlo", omitting some of its scenes and putting them back into the score... No other opera had so many editions and corrections. According to conductor Pierre Vallet, “in Verdi’s score one can hear many times when he bowed to convention established by the Parisian public, and when he is his own master. It is worth wondering how the opera would have sounded without all these conventions. This is what Günter and I embarked to do. We tightened the action and increased the tension of the drama. We made musical cuts to intensify the impact of the music and we sometimes rearranged the order of the scenes for greater continuity. We feel confident that Verdi would have been quite excited about this version“.

The main goal of the director was to delve deep into G. Verdi’s opera and eliminate all possible clichés that have been plaguing it ever since it was first presented on the Parisian stage in the 19th century. According to G. Krämer, while listening to ballet or entourage scenes one can obviously hear that it is “empty music”. “G. Verdi was very much aware of conventions and wrote those scenes for the Parisian boudoir. He prepared eight versions of "Don Carlo", which only proves the fact that he himself was not fully happy with the final result and form of the work.”

G. Krämer’s production is filled with unexpected theatrical solutions and interesting correlations. He was affected and inspired by the rock star David Bowie’s spectacular farewell message, his final album "Blackstar". Since one of the central scenes of "Don Carlo" is that of an auto-da-fe arranged by the Spanish Inquisition, the aesthetics of the video for album’s title song "Blackstar" have become certain point of departure for the staging.

All inspirations generate a maximum strength of impact for the audience.